At their first meeting this month, the Rancho Cucamonga City Council decided to join the annual nationwide observance by declaring September 2018 as Suicide Prevention Month.

“We stand committed to making sure to that we will work together, and we will do whatever can, with the resources we have available, to make a difference,” said Mayor Dennis Michael.

“Our city family, as well as our residents, are also grieving,” he said. “But none more so than the people that are the members of the Chaffey Joint Union High School District, especially the families who lost their loved ones.”

Mayor L. Dennis Michael pledges the city's ongoing support and tells the audience that suicide bring the second leading cause of death for Americans 10 to 34 "has to change." pic.twitter.com/Ny4f0f67kl

The high school district brought in additional mental health support for students and staff.

“It really depended on the school, the student and their relationships, and so on,” Chaffey superintendent Mat Holton said after the meeting Wednesday. “Some needed more than others. I’m thankful that we have a team that is readily available, skilled and able to be there for kids.”

Students at Rancho Cucamonga, Etiwanda and Alta Loma high schools committed suicide, along with an elementary school student in the Alta Loma Elementary School District, according to officials for the Chaffey Joint Union High School District and Alta Loma School District.

Mat Holton, superintendent of the Chaffey Joint Union High School District, thanks the city for its help and support after three students killed themselves this school year. pic.twitter.com/rO4kqqReTK

School officials are continuing to check in with the students who appear to have been hardest-hit by the deaths of their fellow students.

“For the most part, they’re continuing to move through this,” Holton said. “Certainly still healing, but they’re moving through it.”

Ontario isn’t the only local community mourning after high-profile suicides this month: Weeks after he and his wife shared his mental health challenges in a sermon, Andrew Stoecklein, the lead pastor of Chino’s Inland Hills Church, killed himself, leaving behind a wife and three young sons.

Beau Yarbrough wrote his first newspaper article taking on an authority figure (his middle school principal) when he was in 7th grade. He’s been a professional journalist since 1992, working in Virginia, Egypt and California. In that time, he’s covered community news, features, politics, local government, education, the comic book industry and more. He’s covered the war in Bosnia, interviewed presidential candidates, written theatrical reviews, attended a seance, ridden in a blimp and interviewed both Batman and Wonder Woman (Adam West and Lynda Carter). He also cooks a mean pot of chili.